There is a deep reason for the fact that, wherever the posterity of the Patriarchs are spoken of as the instruments of blessing, the singular is always used. This circumstance is pointed out by Paul in Gal. iii. 16. The Apostle does not in the least think of maintaining that, by זרע "seed," only a single individual could be signified. Such an opinion, no one who understood Hebrew could for a moment entertain; and Rom. iv. 13 shows that Paul was indeed very far from doing so. The further development of the promise (which took place within the limits of Genesis itself, in chap. xlix. 10), as well as its fulfilment (it is, indeed, with reference to the promise now under consideration that the lineal descent of Christ from Abraham is established at the commencement of Matthew's Gospel), showed that the real cause of the salvation bestowed upon the Gentiles was not the seed of Abraham as a whole, but one from among them, or rather He, in whom this whole posterity was comprehended and concentrated. Now, all to which Paul intends to draw our attention is the fact, that the Lord, who, when He gave the promise, had already in view its fulfilment which He had Himself to accomplish, did not unintentionally choose an expression which, besides the comprehensive meaning which would most naturally suggest itself to the Patriarchs, admitted also of the more restricted one which was confirmed by the fulfilment. In the Protevangelium, and in the promise of the Prophet in Deut. xviii., we have a case quite analogous to this; and in 2 Sam. vii. there is likewise a case which is, to a certain extent, parallel.
In two passages out of the five—in chap. xxii. 18 and xxvi. 4—the Hithpael of the verb ברך instead of the Niphal is found. We meet with it also again in the derived passage in Ps. lxxii. 17, where it is said of the great King to come, "And they shall bless themselves in Him, all nations shall bless Him." In xxii. 18 and xxvi. 4, we shall be allowed to translate only thus: "They shall bless themselves in thy seed." For the Hithpael of ברך always signifies "to bless oneself;" and the person from whom the blessing is derived (Isa. lxv. 16; Jer. iv. 2), or whose blessing is desired, is connected with it by means of the preposition ב. (Compare Gen. xlviii. 20: "In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh.") From the nature of the case, it is evident that only the latter can be meant here. This is shown also by the derived passage in Ps. lxxii. 17, where the words, "they shall bless themselves in Him," are explained by the subsequent expression, "they shall bless Him."
But it is certainly not accidental that the Hithpael is on both sides inclosed by the Niphal, and that the latter stands not only twice at the beginning, but also at the end. Hence we are not at liberty to force upon the Hithpael the signification of the Niphal; but the passages in which the Hithpael occurs must be supplemented from the real fundamental passages. "To bless oneself in" is the preparatory step to being "blessed by." The acknowledgment of the blessing calls forth the wish to be a partaker of it. (Compare Isa. xlv. 14, where, in consequence of the rich blessings poured out upon Israel, the nations make the request to be received among them.) Oftentimes in the Psalms utterance is given to the expectation that, through the blessing resting on the people of God, the Gentiles will be allowed to seek communion in it. (
See my Commentary on Ps. vol. iii. p. lxxvii.) But especially in Ps. lxxii. does it clearly appear how "blessing oneself in" is connected with "being blessed by." The very same people who bless themselves in the glorious King to come, hasten to Him to partake in the fulness of the blessings which He dispenses. He has dominion from sea to sea; they that dwell in the wilderness bow before Him; all kings worship Him; all nations serve Him.
Several commentators (Clericus, Gesenius, de Wette, Maurer, Knobel, and, in substance, Hofmann also) attempt to explain the fundamental passage by the derived ones, and force upon Niphal the signification of Hithpael; so that the sense would be only that a great and, as it were, proverbial happiness and prosperity belonged to Abraham: "Holding up this name as a pattern, most of the eastern nations will comprehend all blessings in these or similar words: 'God bless thee as He blessed Abraham.'" But this explanation is, according to the usus loquendi, incorrect, inasmuch as the Niphal is used only in the signification "to be blessed," and never means "to bless oneself," or "to have or find one's blessing in something." To a difference in the significations of the Niphal and the Hithpael, we are led also by the circumstance that the Hithpael is connected only with the seed—"they shall bless themselves in thy seed,"—and the Niphal only with the person of the Patriarch: "they shall be blessed in thee," and "in thee and thy seed." The Patriarchs themselves are the source of blessing, but, if these nations blessed themselves, they wish for themselves the blessing of their descendants exhibited before their eyes. The reference in Zech. xiv. 17, 18 to the promise made to the Patriarchs presupposes the Messianic character, and the passive signification of נברכו. In like manner, all the quotations of it in the New Testament rest on the passive signification. It is from this view of it that the Lord says that Abraham saw His day; that, in Rom. iv. 13, Paul finds, in this promise, the prophecy of His conquering the world; and that, in Gal. iii. 14, he speaks of the blessing of Abraham upon the Gentiles through Christ Jesus. Gal. iii. 8 and Acts iii. 25 render נברכו by ἐνευλογηθήσονται. The explanation, "they shall wish prosperity or happiness to each other," is destructive of the gradation, so evident in the fundamental passage,—blessing for, on account of, and by Abraham; it cannot account for the constant, solemn repetition of this proclamation which everywhere appears as the acme of the promises given to the Patriarch; it destroys the correspondence existing between this blessing upon all the families of the earth, and the curse which, after the fall, was inflicted upon the earth; it does away with the contrast, so clearly marked, between the union of the families of the earth effected by the blessing, and their dispersion, narrated in chap. xi.; it demolishes the connection existing between the prophecy of Japheth's dwelling in the tents of Shem (ix. 27), on the one hand, and the Ruler proceeding from Judah, to whom shall be the obedience of the nations (xlix. 10), on the other; and it severs all the necessary connecting links which unite these prophecies with one another.
Another attempt to deprive this promise of its Messianic character—that, namely, made by Bertholdt (de ortu theol. Vet. Hebr. p. 102) and others, who would have us to understand, by the families and nations of the earth, the Canaanitish nations—does not require any minute examination, as the weakness of these productions of rationalistic tendency are so glaringly manifest.
[ [1]] Herder says, in his Briefe das Studium der Theol. betr. ii. S. 278: "If, in Abraham's descendants, all the nations of the earth were to be blessed, Abraham might and should have conceived of this blessing in all its generality, so that everything whereby his nation deserved well of the nations of the earth, was implied in it. If, then, Christ also belongs to the number of those noble individuals who deserved so well, the blessing refers to Him, not indirectly, but directly; and if Christ be the chief of all this number, it then most directly, and in preference to all others, refers to Him;—although, in this germ, Abraham did not distinctly perceive His person, did not, nor could, except by special revelation, in this bud, so plainly discover the full growth of His merits."
[ [2]] Even in this he was preceded by Lampe, who remarks: "Christ had spoken of seeing the day; the Jews speak about seeing the person. He had spoken of Abraham's seeing; they speak of Christ's seeing."